If you've been paying attention, you'll know that BlackBerry (née RIM) unveiled its long-awaited BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 handsets today alongside the BlackBerry 10 operating system. Our full reviews of both the Z10 (which we were given as we left the press event) and the BlackBerry 10 OS themselves will be here in the next few days, but in the meantime we have one question: just how fast are these phones?

BlackBerry was coy about announcing official pricing ahead of the phones' actual US launch sometime in mid-March—$149 with a contract was suggested for the Canadian launch, and Verizon bumped that up to $199 with a two-year contract—but it's clear that the Z10 will be priced against premium phones from entrenched competitors rather than $100 midrange handsets or low-end, free-with-contract phones.

The problem with measuring how well a smartphone on a new or less-popular software platform performs is that most of our common benchmarking tools—things like Geekbench and GLBenchmark—simply aren't available for download. Luckily for us, we have in our possession an Android phone with tech specs very similar to the Z10: Samsung's Galaxy S III uses an identical dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 SoC (part number MSM8960).

This allows us to do two things: use the S III as a rough stand-in when measuring the Z10's raw performance, and perform something akin to an apples-to-apples comparison between the BlackBerry 10 browser and Android's browser (and Google Chrome)—a definite priority, given how integral the browser is to the smartphone experience. We ran some quick tests on both phones to give you a preview of its performance ahead of the full review.

It's worth noting, however, that while the numbers will offer a good idea of the kind of raw performance you can expect from the Z10 in the best cases, the actual performance will be affected by the OS due to differences in drivers and power management between Android and BlackBerry 10.

Note that, for our purposes, we'll be discussing mostly the US version of the Z10—as sometimes happens, the international version of the phone will be shipping with an OMAP 4470 from Texas Instruments.

The Snapdragon S4 Plus revisited

The US version of the Samsung Galaxy S III uses identical hardware on the inside, making it ideal for a performance comparison.

Casey Johnston

The dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus CPU cores (codenamed Krait) in both phones, as well as their accompanying Adreno 225 GPUs, have been eclipsed in performance by several chips at this point. These include Apple's A6 SoC family, Samsung's Exynos 5 Dual, and Qualcomm's own Snapdragon S4 Pro, the latter of which drives LG's Optimus G and Nexus 4, among others. It doesn't mean that the S4 Plus is slow—just that it's no longer cutting edge, and it will be even less cutting edge by March. Our first graphs will put it into context for you.

For these benchmarks, we tried to pick phones that represented a fairly wide variety of hardware—cutting-edge silicon, like that in the Nexus 4 and iPhone 5; squarely last-generation hardware such as the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy Nexus; and the Galaxy S III, which should fall right in the middle of the pack in most respects.

In the Geekbench CPU tests, this is largely true—it's slower than the Nexus 4 and iPhone 5 (and faster than the Galaxy Nexus and iPhone 4S) in most respects, with a few exceptions. The quad-core S4 Pro in the Nexus 4 obviously shares a memory controller in common with the S4 Plus (hence the identical numbers); otherwise the raw performance of the S III and the Z10 is good but not quite at the top of the pile.

Note: Due to Vsync, scores for the GLBenchmark Onscreen tests are capped at 60 frames per second.

The graphics story is a bit different. If you want a direct comparison of the GPUs' raw power, look at the Offscreen tests, which renders the same scene at 1080p resolution on all of the phones. If you want to know what kind of frame rates you can expect on the Z10's 1280×768 screen (to which the S III's 1280×720 screen is close enough to make the two comparable), look at the Onscreen numbers, which render the scenes at each phone's respective native resolution.

In all cases, the S III still falls right in the middle of the two other Android phones, but the iPhones benefit from Apple's emphasis on GPU performance over CPU performance in its platforms. The S III (and Z10) have enough raw power for most of today's mobile games, but they aren't pushing the performance envelope these days, and they have a bit less graphical power than other phones in the same price range.

Again, keep in mind that we're using the S III as a stand-in, and scores will vary slightly due to differences in the OS.

Browser performance

We're going to do two different things for our browser performance tests: we'll run some common benchmarks to see how the Z10's Webkit-based browser stacks up to Chrome for Android and the stock Android browser on the S III. We'll then do some actual pageview loading tests, since JavaScript scores don't always tell the whole story about browser performance.

To our standard SunSpider and Google Octane tests, we've added Mozilla's heavyweight Kraken 1.1 benchmark. The Z10's browser holds the line against Chrome in SunSpider, but it falls further behind in all of the other tests—its Kraken speed, in particular, is more than 33 percent slower than either other browser. Both Chrome and the Android browser have had more time to evolve and optimize than has the BlackBerry 10 browser, but these charts don't paint a pretty picture.

How does this actually impact page loading speed, though? Each of the pages below were loaded once for purposes of either signing in or requesting the desktop site, and they were then loaded three more times; the results of the three tests were then averaged. We started the stopwatch when we entered the URL and stopped it when all of the page's elements were fully loaded—we also used a mix of desktop and mobile sites just to keep things interesting.

Page

BlackBerry 10 browser

Galaxy S III (Browser)

Galaxy S III (Chrome)

Ars homepage (desktop)

4.4 seconds

3.7 seconds

5.2 seconds

New York Times homepage (desktop)

5.5 seconds

5.8 seconds

5.0 seconds

Gmail web client (mobile)

4.0 seconds

3.2 seconds

2.2 seconds

The differences demonstrated in the benchmarks don't usually carry over to actual page loading times, though. Loading the Ars and NYT homepages wasn't drastically faster or slower on any of the phones—usually between five and six seconds—while the Gmail homepage loads much more quickly on Chrome in particular. Whether this comes down to Chrome and Gmail being developed by the same company or the Android browsers’ general JavaScript superiority is hard to say.

As so often is the case with these kinds of things, any actual delays in page loading time relative to the Android browsers are things you notice if the phones are next to each other or you have a stopwatch out, but they're not typically noticeable if you’re just using the phone in a vacuum. BlackBerry’s JavaScript engine is generally slower on the same hardware than either the Android Browser or Chrome for Android, but realistically it's not a huge handicap.

Not cutting edge, but speed shouldn't be a problem

Our biggest concern with the BlackBerry Z10's performance isn't that it's bad, but that it's being sold against better-specced phones at roughly the same price point. Microsoft hasn't been able to move many Windows Phone 8 units despite packing the same kind of chips into $99 phones, and a $149 or $199 price (with contract) for the Z10 is only going to discourage new buyers. The Galaxy S III is in the same boat now, but it's a major phone with established software from a big player, and the odds are good that we'll learn something about its follow-up at Mobile World Congress next month.

That said, the Z10 uses hardware that's more than sufficient to give a good experience, and anyone who buys phones without really caring about the particular processor used inside shouldn't notice any deal-breaking performance problems. We'll be examining and discussing UI performance a bit more thoroughly in our Z10 and BlackBerry 10 reviews in the coming days—for now, the takeaway is that the phone's internals are generally up to snuff, but the handset seems just a bit pricey compared to its peers.

Andrew Cunningham
Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites

It's getting to the point at which some performance specs aren't of that much importance to most users. If they're close enough, say on the order of 25%, people aren't going to notice the difference most of the time.

What matters most is if the entire experience feels smooth and proper. If it does, then the rest is of lessor importance. If we're talking about high end games, 3D apps, CAD, editing, etc. which is done on some phones and tablets, then performance does matter. But most people don't do those things.

I think the pricing is a perceptual one. Assuming these phones aren't costly to make, introducing them as mid stream models may lower the perception of the BB as a high end, desirable product.

Those sunspider times are frankly laughable. My 8X gets 900ms times consistently. Looks like BB and Android browsers are seriously lacking in optimisation. With android i can understand but with bb its their own hardware so surely they could have made it better.

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

I was about to post exactly the same thing. I'm not even sure the user experience is that important, since WP8 is terrific to use, but no one buys it because there aren't a bajillion apps. It's a shame, really.

Those sunspider times are frankly laughable. My 8X gets 900ms times consistently. Looks like BB and Android browsers are seriously lacking in optimisation. With android i can understand but with bb its their own hardware so surely they could have made it better.

Well, it is the first iteration. They had to get this out the door on time. They have had so many delays already that another delay for tweaking the products wouldn't be acceptable. If they get small point updates out in a timely manner, and fix small performance problems and bugs, then it would be fine. We'll just have to see if they can do it.

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

Agreed. My playboox is very smooth in everything it does and it only has a 1GHz cpu and is two years old. The eco system can improve for sure. Hopefully they give us a date on when BB10 will be avialable for Playbook and hopefully by then , they will have Netflix and Instagram and a few more top apps.

I'd like to see a more detailed review on Z10 instead of doing some tests on S3 because it uses the same chip.

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

Which is why they are measuring application performance.

They're measuring browser performance, which is virtually impossible for average people to judge in real-world conditions, due to network coverage, traffic, etc. Almost no one is ever going to notice or care if their browser loads sites a couple seconds faster or slower. What they will notice is how the UI works, how many apps there are, and how much it costs.

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

I was about to post exactly the same thing. I'm not even sure the user experience is that important, since WP8 is terrific to use, but no one buys it because there aren't a bajillion apps. It's a shame, really.

User experience is important. What you have to understand is that many people may not agree that Win Phone 8 has a good user experience. Look at WebOS, great reviews for the OS, pretty good, but not perfect reviews on the hardware, but it failed. I saw people in phone stores pick them up, play with them for a few seconds, and put them down. Same thing I see for Win Phone 8 phones.

Hopefully, the UI for this, which can be a bit confusing, as some who have used it at the presentation have stated, won't turn people off. Unfortunately, if in the first few seconds, people can't figure it out, they lose interest.

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

I was about to post exactly the same thing. I'm not even sure the user experience is that important, since WP8 is terrific to use, but no one buys it because there aren't a bajillion apps. It's a shame, really.

You aren't spending your time in the OS, you are spending your time in the apps. For this reason there is a limit to how much the OS matters. People who frequent Ars, like me, are more likely to be interested in OS design and UI than the average person, but in the end all the OS really has to do is have a decent phone, decent messaging, and launch lots of great apps.

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

Mostly with you.

But my last upgrade cycle gave me a phone that felt much faster/nicer than the SunSpider etc led me to believe. LTE was a big part of it, and there's some evidence that I read to suggest BB is throttling it in the effort to keep battery life tolerable. Both sides of that issue could have a big impact on customer perceptions.

A couple of apps worked enough more smoothly that they were noticeably more fun to use, but as you said, you need pretty serious speed differences for it to matter. However, apps are mostly about usability. BB claims to make it trivially easy to re-compile your Android app for BB's VM, but users will care about performance of games, smoothness of animations, UI consistency and all that. In addition, it's a fair guess we'll see a bunch of AIR or other ports; there are many considerations.

I think there's still some room for performance considerations to matter, especially in UI and networking.

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

Which is why they are measuring application performance.

App performance also isn't a great measure. Unfortunately, there's no way to benchmark "does the screen stutter, lag or stick when I do a swipe/drag?" or "Does the keyboard occasionally fall behind what I'm really typing".

Android has traditionally been challenged in these respects (though, honestly, I haven't seen much lag on the current top-tier phones) vis-a-vis contemporary hardware on different platforms. The example that keeps coming back to me if the PlayBook-versus-Xoom: the former is still quite usable and almost never lags unless you really push the GPU, the latter is laggy to the point of frustration on even simple tasks, and both have about the same specs and were released around the same time.

Another might be the Nokia Lumia 900 versus a Galaxy SII: the former, despite being single-core, almost never drags behind the user; the latter certainly will. It certain suprises me to remember that the 900 is a single-core phone as single-core Androids are awful.

So, that said, had the Z10 come out a year ago, this would be far more noticeable, between Android's UI decisions pre-JB and the PlayBook's generally snappy behaviour. Now, against monsters like the quard-core Exynos, it's a bit less relevant. Given that, it's kind of a shame to see that RIM hasn't put more money into, eg, the camera, battery, RAM and/or storage.

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

I agree that people don't care so much about Chip power, but when it comes to their browser performance, people sure have gripes. Personally I want to see BB do just as well or better than Chrome, or else allow a Chrome browser on their devices. As a developer who spends a lot of time building HTML 5 + JS applications, I would love for BB to lead the way to making HTML 5 apps perform on par with native.

Honestly, I'd like to see them succeed because I like the competition in the market. The fact that app developers only need to support one model of hardware will work in their favor just like it works for the iPhone. Customer satisfaction will be higher overall, just like the iPhone, where as Android devs deal with all sorts of negative feedback from people with junky devices.

I personally am not even remotely interested in owning one. I would consider WP8 before BB, but I'm already invested in Android.

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

I was about to post exactly the same thing. I'm not even sure the user experience is that important, since WP8 is terrific to use, but no one buys it because there aren't a bajillion apps. It's a shame, really.

You aren't spending your time in the OS, you are spending your time in the apps. For this reason there is a limit to how much the OS matters. People who frequent Ars, like me, are more likely to be interested in OS design and UI than the average person, but in the end all the OS really has to do is have a decent phone, decent messaging, and launch lots of great apps.

I know I've personally reached a level of satisfaction with 720p and current chips for my phone needs and know most of my friends/family have too.. until they reach the point of computer replacement where I can just link it up with a screen(s) and peripherals (either by dock or wireless).. (it would be there now were it not for my CS usage and interest to delve into programming)

You don't even need that many great apps.. just the ones the customers want.. cover the top 100/500 or so and you're most likely fine.. how many of the 600,000 plus apps for iOS/Android are actually useful/used/downloaded/necessary? plus they still have BBM, which I always felt was their main selling point for non-business use cases and the hub seems useful (if not just like the Win People) for people deeply entrenched in social media

Those sunspider times are frankly laughable. My 8X gets 900ms times consistently. Looks like BB and Android browsers are seriously lacking in optimisation. With android i can understand but with bb its their own hardware so surely they could have made it better.

Sunspider is a very obsolete browser benchmark. Google hasn't optimized for it for almost 2 years now. They now optimize for much heavier tests.

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

I was about to post exactly the same thing. I'm not even sure the user experience is that important, since WP8 is terrific to use, but no one buys it because there aren't a bajillion apps. It's a shame, really.

... Nobody buys windows phone because the user experience is shit, it's nothing to do with apps, it's to do with style, and just like Windows 8, nobody likes it.

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

I was about to post exactly the same thing. I'm not even sure the user experience is that important, since WP8 is terrific to use, but no one buys it because there aren't a bajillion apps. It's a shame, really.

You aren't spending your time in the OS, you are spending your time in the apps. For this reason there is a limit to how much the OS matters. People who frequent Ars, like me, are more likely to be interested in OS design and UI than the average person, but in the end all the OS really has to do is have a decent phone, decent messaging, and launch lots of great apps.

... The OS impacts EVERYTHING. how fast apps respond, how fast the perform at all, what features they have, the OS is central, are you serious right now?

Do we have confirmation from BB that the omap4470 non-LTE version will definitely be for "every" country outside the US? If so, mightily disappointed....

Can anyone corroborate that the OMAP4470 version will not support LTE? The best I can find is this, which only states that the Snapdragon version will launch in the US and Canada, while the OMAP version will launch everywhere else.

I've seen a few references that the OMAP4470 version won't support LTE after doing a quick search, but I'm confused because the LTE version of the BlackBerry Playbook uses the OMAP4460 SoC. Assuming the 4470 is an incremental update to the 4460, why would it lose LTE support?

More generally, can anyone describe the difference between the two chips in layman's terms? Are they roughly equivalent, or could one expect a performance difference between the two chips? Why is BlackBerry launching the Z10 with 2 different hardware configurations? I don't mean that in a belittling way, I'm genuinely curious from a technical and business perspective.

Chip power is also a factor because it directly enhances the UX. With nice steel casing, and learning keyboard, it must be the best in current market. They don't have their own cloud and eco system, but I guess that they won't lag behind in adding them in the future.

Vastarien wrote:

tommaisey wrote:

Chip power has absolutely nothing to do with whether the BlackBerry is a success. Customers care not a jot. The important points are the ecosystem and the user experience.

I was about to post exactly the same thing. I'm not even sure the user experience is that important, since WP8 is terrific to use, but no one buys it because there aren't a bajillion apps. It's a shame, really.

So basically the phone does a quality job against similar phones but shouldn't be priced against higher end phones....which is what BBRY is doing.

So basically they're taking apples approach to pricing

Say what you will about Apple's computer pricing, but their phones and tablets seem to be priced apporpriately for their capabilities and specs. Blackberry's... not so much. They made this same mistake with the Playbook, and it cost them dearly; I see this ending about as well.

Those sunspider times are frankly laughable. My 8X gets 900ms times consistently. Looks like BB and Android browsers are seriously lacking in optimisation. With android i can understand but with bb its their own hardware so surely they could have made it better.

So basically the phone does a quality job against similar phones but shouldn't be priced against higher end phones....which is what BBRY is doing.

So basically they're taking apples approach to pricing

Say what you will about Apple's computer pricing, but their phones and tablets seem to be priced apporpriately for their capabilities and specs. Blackberry's... not so much. They made this same mistake with the Playbook, and it cost them dearly; I see this ending about as well.

As far as hardware is concerned, it sounds like the iPhone 5 outclasses the Z10 in 2 categories, processor and battery life. I would argue that these are marginal victories. The Z10 is capable of all-day usage on a single charge and has a user replaceable battery. As far as processor speed is concerned, BB10 is based on QNX, which is an RTOS and thus is better equipped to respond to user input with minimum latency. In other words, BB10 doesn't need a beefy processor to feel fast, Blackberry took care of that on the software side.

There are also hardware advantages to the Z10 over the iPhone. The microSD slot is a huge bonus, allowing for affordable storage expansion. In fact, if you start to compare the 32 GB and 64 GB iPhone models with the Z10 combined with a microSD card, the price discrepancy starts to jump by hundreds of dollars. The screen is bigger and has a higher pixel density than the iPhone 5. A micro-USB port instead of the proprietary port Apple uses. A mini-HDMI port, eliminating one more dongle you have to carry around. Those are the big ones as far as I know.

There is plenty of value in the Z10 at it's current price-point, even compared to an iPhone. I doubt it will convince the masses overnight, especially people already invested in the Apple ecosystem, but it's a solid entry.

Footnote - Canadian low-cost carrier Koodo (a subsidiary of one of the big telecoms, Telus), is offering the Z10 for $550 outright. iPhone 5 is $670.

One states that any marketing battle between several companies will eventually come down to two or possibly three companies. Coke, Pepsi...RC. We have Coke (iOS), Pepsi (Android), and everyone else will be fighting to be the RC Cola of mobile. I think Microsoft will win.

So basically the phone does a quality job against similar phones but shouldn't be priced against higher end phones....which is what BBRY is doing.

So basically they're taking apples approach to pricing

Say what you will about Apple's computer pricing, but their phones and tablets seem to be priced apporpriately for their capabilities and specs. Blackberry's... not so much. They made this same mistake with the Playbook, and it cost them dearly; I see this ending about as well.

As far as hardware is concerned, it sounds like the iPhone 5 outclasses the Z10 in 2 categories, processor and battery life. I would argue that these are marginal victories. The Z10 is capable of all-day usage on a single charge and has a user replaceable battery. As far as processor speed is concerned, BB10 is based on QNX, which is an RTOS and thus is better equipped to respond to user input with minimum latency. In other words, BB10 doesn't need a beefy processor to feel fast, Blackberry took care of that on the software side.

There are also hardware advantages to the Z10 over the iPhone. The microSD slot is a huge bonus, allowing for affordable storage expansion. In fact, if you start to compare the 32 GB and 64 GB iPhone models with the Z10 combined with a microSD card, the price discrepancy starts to jump by hundreds of dollars. The screen is bigger and has a higher pixel density than the iPhone 5. A micro-USB port instead of the proprietary port Apple uses. A mini-HDMI port, eliminating one more dongle you have to carry around. Those are the big ones as far as I know.

There is plenty of value in the Z10 at it's current price-point, even compared to an iPhone. I doubt it will convince the masses overnight, especially people already invested in the Apple ecosystem, but it's a solid entry.

Footnote - Canadian low-cost carrier Koodo (a subsidiary of one of the big telecoms, Telus), is offering the Z10 for $550 outright. iPhone 5 is $670.

This likely needs that extra battery. As far as Sd cards go, peop,e have the wrong idea about them. As secondary storage, it's kind of ok, but as primary storage, as an extension of the main flash storage, it might not be so ok. The problem is the speed of the card. Cheap cards are very slow, and use three level flash, which isn't intended for continuous use. If you look at pricing on SD cards and Compact Flash cards that have the kind of speed you would need to not impact performance, you'll notice that they're quite expensive, over $100 for larger sizes.

Do we have confirmation from BB that the omap4470 non-LTE version will definitely be for "every" country outside the US? If so, mightily disappointed....

They're shipping the Snapdragon in all markets that currently have LTE or will soon. I know those at the UK launch received Snapdragon-powered phones.

melgross wrote:

This likely needs that extra battery. As far as Sd cards go, peop,e have the wrong idea about them. As secondary storage, it's kind of ok, but as primary storage, as an extension of the main flash storage, it might not be so ok. The problem is the speed of the card. Cheap cards are very slow, and use three level flash, which isn't intended for continuous use. If you look at pricing on SD cards and Compact Flash cards that have the kind of speed you would need to not impact performance, you'll notice that they're quite expensive, over $100 for larger sizes.

A class 10 32GB micro SD can be had for about $25. That's a 10MB/s performance guarantee, which for most applications is more than fast enough. The SD is only for media storage, the OS and apps are on the 16GB of internal memory. Most people don't access pictures, music or movies often enough that the wear would be an issue over the average smartphone life (2-3 years).